Tarran Killam
MOVING ON…After a summer-long dispute with Actors’ Equity, writer Henry Jaglom may have yanked his long-running comedy, Just 45 Minutes from Broadway, from Santa Monica’s Edgemar Center for the Arts but he has not forsaken the production. Original cast members Tanna Frederick, David Garver, Julie Davis, Harriet Schock, David Proval, Diane Salinger, Jack Heller and director Gary Imhoff are enjoying a Labor Day weekend three-night run of Broadway at The Pewter Plough Playhouse in the Central California village of Cambria (Sept. 3-5) and a film is in the works…In the meantime, the Edgemar has picked up the slack with a three-week run of Michael Cristofer‘s Tony and Pulitzer winner The Shadow Box, helmed by Keith David, produced by Shayne Anderson (Sept. 11-25). Upcoming is the seductive French cabaret, Le Tick Tock (Oct. 16), wrought by the creators of the 2005 Edgemar hit The Night of the Black Cat, helmer Deborah LaVine and producer Alexandra Guarnieri…Over in Hollywood, that nurturing ground of bravura sketch comedy, The Groundlings, has sent another alumnus to NBC’s late-night laff-fest, Saturday Night Live. Taran Killam joins a long list of Groundling grads who have made it to 30 Rockefeller Ctr.’s SNL stage, including Cheri Oteri, Ana Gasteyer, Jimmy Fallon, Phil Hartman and Chris Kattan…
Maria Conchita Alonzo
Also, the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen Playhouse has figured out how to keep a play going even after losing its high profile cast. Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron‘s Love, Loss and What I Wore, helmed by Jenny Sullivan, welcomes a new ensemble of noted thesps including Maria Conchita Alonzo, Jami Gertz, Jenny O’Hara, Harriet Sansom Harris and Christine Lahti, re-opening Sept. 2…And Mad World Productions is so happy with the response to its revival of Stephen Belber‘s acclaimed three-person drama Tape, directed by Joelle Arqueros, produced by Arqueros and Nicolas Read, which closed Aug. 28 at the Renegade Theatre in Hollywood, it is immediately moving the show to Phil Becker‘s NoHo Stages in North Hollywood (Sept. 2)…
MORE HOUSES REVEAL SEASON WARES…Daniel Henning (Founding Artistic Director) and Noah Wyle (Artistic Producer) have come forth with the 20th Anniversary Season of Hollywood’s Blank Theatre Company, featuring works by Edmund White, David Sedaris, and Marc Blitzstein, plus 12 new plays by “inspired teenagers.” Opener is the LA premiere of White’s Terre Haute, helmed by Kirsten Sanderson (Oct. 2 at Blank’s 2nd Stage), followed by the return of Sedaris’ The Santaland Diaries, starring Nicholas Brendon, staged by Michael Matthews (Nov. 19 at the Stella Adler). Reviving its 1994 hit, Blank re-boards Blitzstein’s tuner, helmed by Henning, The Cradle Will Rock (Feb. 5). A TBA spring premiere will be followed by The Blank’s 19th Annual Nationwide Young Playwrights Festival (June 2-26, 2011 at the Stella Adler)…Looking ahead, Long Beach-based International City Theatre’s artistic director Shashin Desai has revealed its 2011 season, beginning with the West Coast premiere of the tuner, Loving Repeating: A Musical of Gertrude Stein, adapted from the writings of Gertrude Stein by Frank Galati, music by Stephen Flaherty, staged by caryn desai (Jan. 21). Upcoming: Kathleen Clark‘s Southern Comforts, directed by Jules Aaron (Mar. 18); the three-hander Old Settler by John Henry Redwood (June 3); the Noel Coward perennial Private Lives (Aug. 26); and Tony-winning tuner, The Robber Bridegroom by Alfred Uhry (book and lyrics), Robert Waldman (music), based on the novella by Eudora Welty…
THIS AND THAT…The legendary stage/film actor James Whitmore Sr., died last year before he could put final touches to the Whitmore Eclectic Lyric Theater in Hollywood. Now run by his son, noted TV director James Whitmore Jr., granddaughter actress/creative director Aliah Whitmore and production designer Jacob Whitmore, the theater’s resident company, the Whitmore Eclectic Theater Group, is launching a five play, six-month season beginning with Sam Shepard‘s True West, staged by Aliah Whitmore beginning Sept. 9. Upcoming is the Orson Welles adaptation of Herman Melville‘s Moby Dick (date TBA)…Costa Mesa-based South Coast Repertory has added the world premiere romantic comedy, Completeness, to its formerly announced 2010-2011 season, scripted by Itamar Moses who scored a hit with his previous SCR preem Bach at Leipzig. Developed earlier this year at SCR’s Pacific Playwright’s Festival, Completeness debuts Apr. 17, helmed by Pam MacKinnon …Over in Burbank, the Victory Theatre Center is getting kind of aggressive with its fundraising, issuing an invitation to its Sept. 12 (5:30 pm) backer’s audition for the West Coast premiere of Sex and Education by Lissa Levin, helmed by Daniel Guntzelman, produced by Tom Ormeny. The three-hander features Madison Palasini, Kanin Gunzelman and Maria Gobetti…
Al Alu and Vickery Turner
INSIDE LA STAGE HISTORY…Incorporated in 1968, the Shakespeare Society of America (SSA), founded by Robert Thaddeus (“R. Thad”) Taylor, began performances this month, 1972, in a former auto repair shop/warehouse on Kings Road in what is now the Macha Theatre in West Hollywood. The SSA Globe Theatre was an authentic one-half scale replica of the interior of Shakespeare’s original Globe Theatre (1599-1613). SSA attracted many of the finest classical stage actors in the US and abroad including Al Alu, who had been a founding member of the American Conservatory Theatre, and British thesp and novelist Vickery Turner, who had originated the role of Sandy in the London world premiere of The Prime of Miss Jean Brody. Alu recalls, “We not only performed on stage, the actors built that Globe theatre replica from scratch out of a glorified Quonset hut.” SSA was the first theatre in the world to stage all 38 Shakespeare plays in succession. Both Taylor and Turner passed away in 2006. Alu, who is renowned for his annual national Pacifica Radio broadcasts of Dylan Thomas‘ A Child’s Christmas in Wales, also has received great acclaim as an artist. His exhibit of “architectural caricature” miniatures of such iconic Los Angeles landmarks as El Coyote Restaurant, the Canyon Country Store, Pink’s and The Improv will debut Sept. 30 at the Wellness Store in Santa Monica. And the Shakespeare Society of America has found a new home at Moss Landing on the Monterey Peninsula…
